We've been gratified this week by the outpouring of support from readers after some 280 of our Wall Street Journal colleagues signed (and someone leaked) a letter to our publisher criticizing the opinion pages.There's not link to the letter, so we have to infer what it says (or go looking for it, which I will do in a minute).
But the support has often been mixed with concern that perhaps the letter will cause us to change our principles and content. On that point, reassurance is in order.Good! Nice professional distancing.
In the spirit of collegiality, we won't respond in kind to the letter signers. Their anxieties aren't our responsibility in any case.
The signers report to the News editors or other parts of the business, and the News and Opinion departments operate with separate staffs and editors. Both report to Publisher Almar Latour. This separation allows us to pursue stories and inform readers with independent judgment.That's how it should work.
It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution.So the letter is an exemplar of "progressive cancel culture" — signed by people who work at The Wall Street Journal but don't understand or don't wish to follow its professionalism.
But we are not the New York Times.Oh! A short hard punch at The New York Times.
Most Journal reporters attempt to cover the news fairly and down the middle, and our opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today's media.The NYT was singled out, but the rest of new media were attacked with even less respect, namelessly.
As long as our proprietors allow us the privilege to do so, the opinion pages will continue to publish contributors who speak their minds within the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse. And these columns will continue to promote the principles of free people and free markets, which are more important than ever in what is a culture of growing progressive conformity and intolerance.Nice!
I found the text of the letter easily:
This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that nearly 300 WSJ staffers signed a letter to the publisher pointing out flaws and errors in Opinion articles and asking for changes. https://t.co/TFOX3KdzOR— marc tracy (@marcatracy) July 23, 2020
Below: The letter in full. pic.twitter.com/v6hZvDcXl3
And here's Joe Pompeo at Vanity Fair, "“I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS”: WALL STREET JOURNAL STAFF ERUPTS OVER RACE AND OPINION/Reporters and editors are pressing management on newsroom diversity, coverage of race and inequality, and the accuracy of Opinion pieces—including Mike Pence’s recent contribution. As one predicts, 'this is not the end'":
Various Journal staffers I spoke with all made a point of noting that the latest letter to management is different than what’s been going on at the New York Times, where a series of convulsions involving its Opinion pages—culminating in a problematic Tom Cotton op-ed that advocated for sending in federal troops to contain protests—recently led to the ouster of editorial page editor James Bennet. “My takeaway,” one of them said, “is that I’m really happy and impressed our staff has remained so sane compared to the rest of media right now. I was worried a letter on the Opinion stuff would turn into something like the New York Times, where anyone with a conservative thought is awful and should be silenced. But the letter made clear how we respect diversity of views and don’t want to tell Opinion how to run their shop.”
Another journalist at the paper said, “It definitely feels like there’s sort of a moment right now where management is a little more open to hearing concerns. There’s more of a window to make asks for things.” And as a third pointed out, “I suspect this is not the end.”
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78 comments:
The idea that the WSJ would follow the NYT down the rabbit hole of cancel culture and single minded opinion pages would cause the death of the journal itself. It's very business model depends on being the alternative to other media. The decision to confront the cancel culture cult is the only decision they could make, both from a philosophical and business perspective.
Imagine FOX news going full progressive. They would then share the same space as everyone else. It makes no sense.
It's a mad world. The correct message should be, "Signers, please decide if you should continue working under our current structure, or seek a position somewhere else. Don't worry about the WSJ, we will find replacements for you."
One of their grievances is that the opinion pages need 'fact-checking' which the WaPo helpfully points out: fact-checking is op-ed.
If WSJ doesn't tell them to go pound sand it's kinda all over isn't it?
What is wrong with being 'wrong' in an opinion column, as long as it is labeled as such?
At what point do we actually start calling this 'cancel culture' what it really is, fascism?
Funny, my friend told me that he - a subscriber to the WSJ for 30+ years - called them yesterday and cancelled. He was fed up with their blatant anti-Trump bias. He attributes it to Murdoch.
different than what’s been going on at the New York Times, where a series of convulsions involving its Opinion pages—culminating in a problematic Tom Cotton op-ed that advocated for sending in federal troops to contain protests
Yesterday the NYT printed an opinion piece from the Chinese government.
Publish sitting US Senator= Fire the opinion editor
Publish Chinese propaganda= The proper agenda to advance
Taking the media a honest brokers of anything is insanity.
I wish I ran into media people on a regular basis, so I could tell them personally, that we out here in the real world consider them nothing but fabulists.
Also- they are playing word games about the Obama surtax. A middle class individual selling stock with a large capital gain would be hit with the tax. There's nothing inaccurate about the assertion made in the op-ed.
"I was worried a letter on the Opinion stuff would turn into something like the New York Times, where anyone with a conservative thought is awful and should be silenced. But the letter made clear how we respect diversity of views and don’t want to tell Opinion how to run their shop."
Except you are telling them how to run their shop?
“I suspect this is not the end.”
And I suspect they are correct. I bet our assumptions about what may come next will differ widely.
What a marvelously articulate, politely-phrased, and graceful way of saying, "Eff you."
Perhaps they could compromise and require a woke/liberal disclaimer for all the news pages.
Tolerance requires that we not tolerate wrongthink. Diversity means that we should not have to be associated with "those people."
The Progressives are mad (again) that Mike Pence wrote an editorial, and they don't agree with his facts...they make up their own, and want you to comply...or die. They want to cancel out any voice that does not think like them. You must think alike...you must think alike, you must think alike...you must think alike...Get it yet??? You will
As long as James Taranto stays at the helm of opinion, things will be alright.
WSJ News should recognize how lucky they are to have him instead of crying because they have the only unique voice in the National News.
read this yesterday in the WSJ ( i am a subscriber) opinion section.
It was reported in the news section
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wsj-journalists-ask-publisher-for-clearer-distinction-between-news-and-opinion-content-11595349198
The news section has been a piece of shit, for Years now. Very little worth reading their. I subscribe for the opinion pieces. If i want left wing AP news, i'll just go to the AP, Why pay money for that?
News dressed up their letter a little bit better than the hacks at NYT, but the concerns are no different.
My favorite thing in the letter is when they don't want Opinion to be listed among the favorite articles on the website.
"Most Journal reporters..."
How can those delicate little snowflakes survive in NYC if they get anxious whenever they hear opinions different from their own? They need to grow a thicker skin and learn that the world does not revolve around them.
WSJ opinion uses the Biden standard: “We choose truth over facts.”
What's happening? The Progressive Zombie Borg is coming for everyone, everywhere, over every damn thing, that's what's happening. Start at the top of the culture and work down to politicizing what kind of bread you drop in your toaster, and whether you cross your legs when you sit.
Or as Professor Glenn Reynolds has been warning for years: You may not care about the gleichschaltung, but the gleichschaltung cares about you.
You vill be made to care.
Unless the proprietor of the Wall Street Journal is willing to remind those 300 signatories that for every one of them, there are about 1,000 other qualified people who would love to have their jobs, then it's inevitable that WSJ will fall, just as NYT has.
If the WSJ wants to go under, they can change the way their editorial group is run.
The WSJ has always had independent news and editorial departments. The news was leftist and the editorial was conservative.
Nowadays conservative has turned to Never Trump but they're still independent.
I've been a subscriber to the WSJ since college, so going on 30 years now. I read the Opinion section daily. I scan the news section daily.
If I had to pick one part only, it would be the Opinion section, a tireless supporter of free people and free markets.
I'm glad to see the Opinion section will keep calm and carry on.
The letter does not identify errors despite their accusations the opinions aren't "fact checked". It identifies "wrong conclusions" but cannot support its own assertion. Thus their complaint is still "people disagree with me / left wing dogma and that shouldn't be allowed".
I hope it's true "this is not the end" and the people signing this letter are all fired over the next 6 months. Only when there are personal repercussions to themselves will they stop trying to get others fired.
This is why academia is such a cancer to our society. Left wing control of academia ensures every left winger has a financial safety net. Melissa Glick found a sinecure in academia even after causing the left a major setback, and of course Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are the public brand of this protection scheme. Left wingers attack their opponents financially specifically because they are invulnerable on this issue. So in addition to firing these people we need to return academia's purpose to education thus denying left wingers this safe base to foment their culture wars.
rhhardin said...
The WSJ has always had independent news and editorial departments.
...and the lefties in news have always bitched about the people in editorial.
Has anyone found a copy of the letter that includes the names of the signers?
For years I have read people asking some variation of the rhetorical question, "If college students insist on being kept safe from opinions they don't agree with, what will these snowflakes do when they get out into the real world?"
The question is being answered.
I'm sure the news reporters for WSJ get a lot of hard pointed questions from their friends at Vox and the NY Times. "I mean- how can you work there when they allow that?"
I agree with an earlier comment. I've read and subscribed to the WSJ for years. I've noticed the definite leftward movement of the news side over the years. And I note that the opinion side is conservative, but mostly anti-Trump. Not entirely, but mostly. And that's fine. That's a nice rounded way of hitting on all ends.
That the news 'reporters' thought it necessary to single out opinion columns for fact checking (and using WaPo as their guide) is not a good show for that staff. These are the people who think they are adults, but act as kids. If they don't get their way, they will pout, and come back to it again. This is not over at the WSJ, I am sure.
That research paper "Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings" was published about a year before the current wave of racism hysteria, and showed no racial bias in police shootings. It was "retracted", not because its data or conclusions were incorrect, but because it was being used as a reference by thought criminals; here is the WSJ's published thought crime.
Funny, my friend told me that he - a subscriber to the WSJ for 30+ years - called them yesterday and cancelled. He was fed up with their blatant anti-Trump bias. He attributes it to Murdoch.
I finally gave up last winter. All I read was Opinion and it seemed it was edging left under the Murdoch boys' influence, much as they are doing at Fox News, which I stopped watching. There was a time, about 30 years ago, when the News pages were almost as good as the Opinion pages. Yes, they leaned left but they were honest. I assume there is no one coming out of Journalism school with any sense anymore.
I suspect that many or most of the "colleagues" who signed the letter were pressured to do so by an implicit threat of "cancellation," meaning they would be socially ostracized with potentially severe career consequences.
This is not what democracy looks like, this is what bullying looks like.
Imagine FOX news going full progressive. They would then share the same space as everyone else. It makes no sense.
And yet that is exactly what the Murdoch kids are doing to FNC. They’ve bifurcated into Conservative-leaning Opinion Shows (Tucker, The Five, Hannity) and really left-leaning “news” with people like Sandra Smith, Leland Vittert and many others who parade a panoply of progressive “contributors” to make sure we have heard the days talking points from the DNC-Media headquarters. Like yesterday, every top of the hour featured the same tired, poorly reported “fact” that 8% of Americans wants schools to open as usual. Eleven hours into their daily schedule Greg Gutfeld finally pointed out that the same poll actually showed nearly 70% wanted schools open when you count the “with modifications” respondents. Every Fox News personality has accepted the NYT spin on the poll as bad for Trump instead of reporting the actual results that support opening schools. If you think Fox is still reliably “independent” or leaning right like their audience then you’re in for a surprise.
Fire 30 of the 300, see what the rest think of it. Rinse, repeat, if necessary.
The inmates do not run their asylum. The cogs do not determine the purpose of the machine. Reporters are assigned stories, beats, or issues to write about, to inform readers and get eyeballs on the advertisements between the articles. If they can't or won't do that, there are tens of thousands of unemployed journalism graduates in the US right now who might be able to take their places.
When I started business school, quite a few years ago, I had a professor who taught a course on business and society, or some such. He was an old Roosevelt liberal. He had one standing assignment: we had to read at least one article from the WSJ editorial page every day, and be prepared to discuss it. I had never looked at the newspaper, and assumed it was filled only with dry business stats and stock-market quotes. What a revelation! Today, there is literally no other newspaper where one can read such a collection of eclectic and thought-provoking stuff. Silencing it will become a pretty high priority over the next few years.
"Their anxieties aren't our responsibility in any case."
This is the rallying cry for all adults in our age.
Maybe the WSJ needs a token liberal fact-checker on the op-ed page, denominated as such.
the letter made clear how we respect diversity of views and don’t want to tell Opinion how to run their shop
Liberals are forever blind to liberal bias.
Good for the WSJ for upholding journalistic values. Coupled with the Red Bull story earlier this week, is it too much to hope the worm is turning?
I’m seeing lots of culture war trashtalk in the Althouse comments. But no specific answers to the examples of fundamentally failed fact-checking that the letter writers provided.
The fact there are even 280 colleagues in the newsroom makes me think the place is a bit bloated...
"Signers, please decide if you should continue working under our current structure, or seek a position somewhere else. Don't worry about the WSJ, we will find replacements for you."
Spot on. And it would also prove valuable if you substitute a different company name. Send it out to baristas, IT Department/HR personnel and many others. It would get a real workout in a just world.
The letter does not identify errors despite their accusations the opinions aren't "fact checked". It identifies "wrong conclusions" but cannot support its own assertion. Thus their complaint is still "people disagree with me / left wing dogma and that shouldn't be allowed".
that seems to be true with most lefties. They are big on accusations but short on actual facts. Most of the leftie commenters on Althouse do the same thing. They throw out invectives like racists and hater, but never seem to engage in a thoughtful fact-based discussion of the issues.
I'm surprised Ann didn't point out the distortion: The people on the news side who are trying to assert control over the opinion side falsely claim that they want a stronger wall between news and opinion.
But no specific answers to the examples of fundamentally failed fact-checking that the letter writers provided.
Shorter Chuck, "Blah, blah, blah, blah."
LLR-lefty and now openly pro-antifa Chuck returns to continue pushing the marxist democrat line.
"Unexpectedly"
Some people are pretty damned sure of themselves. Their opinion is just automatically right, and everybody must learn that, say so, and sign off on it, and right now! Nothing fascist about that.
As I said here recently, the primary characteristic of our culture now is lying. One of the biggest lies is that the left is anti-fascist. It's actually absurd when you see what they do in the name of anti-fascism and race. The Nazis weren't even this intolerant when they started out. They eventually used more gruesome methods, but our Nazis are just getting started, and you know they would match them if they had the power. How could they resist when their goal are so good? The fascist always has high minded goals. You have to, or the whole thing doesn't work.
Most other media employers bend like the signers want, but the signers are cowards and pussies. They won't make a sacrifice for their principles by quitting and going to one of the others for work. They hide behind a petition like frightened sheep. They are not willing to sacrifice anything for what they so strongly believe is right.
I received a survey from the WSJ yesterday, asking questions like, "on a scale of 1-10, how independent do you think the WSJ editorial page is from the news section," and asking similar questions about other national papers. I suspect the publisher sent it out to get ammunition against the commies in the newsroom.
Sometimes that pendulum just seems to take forever to turn around, but it does, and when it does, we should not forget these fools and what they wanted to do to the rest of us and the incredibly powerful yet unlikely principles we have manged to develop against all odd. Things like free-speech, tolerance, freedom, equality, and respect for the individual.
I've subscribed to the WSJ for more than 50 years---reading it daily unless I was traveling out of the country. I admire the fact that, until recently, opinions were kept in the op-ed pages, and the news, by and large, was free of editorial opinion. The news part of the Journal hasn't been pristine in that regard for maybe 15 years now.
The Journal did report the letter in its news pages yesterday---devoted maybe 15 column inches to it. So it's not hiding the fact that the young progressive teenagers on its news staff are mad at their distant relatives on the op ed pages. I mean, "Mom--all the other kids are doing it." Well the Journal news reporters may be "woke", but that's not a formula that works for a real newspaper. Of which there are danged few in the USA these days.
I predict the opinion staff and their leaders get sacked within a month.
This sort of thing does not come from nothing.
There is an increasing process of deplatforming of alternate media, or increasing the "unity" of the coordinated machine.
This is a concerted effort driven by some entity with great leverage - that is, money. Even the WSJ is vulnerable to advertisers, and since the biggest advertisers in the WSJ are on board with one side of the American caste war?
I suspect it will culminate in an attempt to completely silence the Trump campaign - no Twitter, no live or unfiltered interviews, Fox and WSJ silenced, Facebook purged, Youtube purged, etc. Maybe Google and others in the site hosting business will crack down too. Attempts have been made to do all these things.
This WSJ thing may be trialing a pretext, in that opinions and even political advertising cannot be permitted to run without official "fact checking", that is, censorship.
This US political situation is deteriorating by the day.
This is not some organic "grass roots" mania of a slice of the intelligentsia.
I am getting ready to cancel the WSJ, to which I've subscribed for years. It's always bothered me that they are very pro open-borders, but I get it...they are pro business and cheap labor is good. At least they are against a big welfare state. But what's become very noticeable is how the 'entertainment' section has become.
They have a Friday real estate section and a Saturday book review, food, arts, etc. section. Ever since the Murdoch sons took over, those sections have changed. When celebrities are interviewed about their childhood homes, it's always a far left actor/writer/singer. The art section has articles that aren't about art, but 'black' art. The illustrations and photos accompanying the articles depict African Americans about 50 percent of the time. It's an in-you-face kind of pandering.
Call me an old fuddy-duddy ('You're an old fuddy-duddy!'), but I just want news and entertainment with no obvious political subtext.
And if the publisher had any sense, he would fire every single person who signed the letter and start again. I'm sure there are many young reporters who would love to work for the WSJ.
There is a feeling I have of an enormous collective monster testing his muscles, straining against what remains of your constitutional constraints, the main one being your popular will. Trump is an expression and instrument of your popular will, his position is a legal restraint on that monster, the lid on the pot, the stopper in the bottle, the lock on the chain. But the monster insists on breaking free, to dominate the people completely.
From the letter:
"He wrote twice that the bill mandates annuities, claiming "The insurance industry loves the Secure Act's mandate that annuities be offered as a payout option in all retirement plans" and "The mandatory offer of an annuity is a first step that could lead to the mandatory annuitization of all retirement accounts." But the Secure Act does not mandate annuities in retirement accounts."
The letter writer twice quotes the act as mandating offering annuities as an option, and then accuses the Opinion author of mistakenly saying it mandates converting retirement plans to annuities. I don't need to go and review either the original Opinion piece, or the act he is criticizing, to determine that the letter writer is making a false accusation; its own quotes show that the accusation is false.
“I suspect this is not the end.”
Well, no, it's not going to be the end . . . unless the publisher is sane enough to recognize the threat and fire all 280 of the Red Guards who signed it.
But no specific answers to the examples of fundamentally failed fact-checking that the letter writers provided.
"A few academics desperately retracted a paper they wrote in an effort to save their own jobs, despite being unable to come up with any plausible grounds on which to claim their paper was actually erroneous" does not constitute evidence of "fundamentally failed fact-checking". It constitutes evidence that the modern Inquisition is suppressing science on the grounds of heresy.
That you are taking the side of the Inquisition, well, that speaks volumes about your character.
Diversity, not limited to racism.
growing progressive
Redundant, mostly. A progressive system, process, or ideology is [unqualified] monotonic.
280 bad hires. Time to overhaul HR.
The response to the letter from the News staff to the publisher about the Opinion staff must have been crafted and written by a Dutch parent.
Tom T.: "I'm surprised Ann didn't point out the distortion: The people on the news side who are trying to assert control over the opinion side falsely claim that they want a stronger wall between news and opinion."
Lefties are always constructing elaborate orwellian double-speak lies to justify their actions and tactics.
See LLR-lefty Chuck as a case study in this.
In the spirit of collegiality, we won't respond in kind to the letter signers. Their anxieties aren't our responsibility in any case.
The anxieties of the letter signers.
Think about it. The editorial writers did not focus on how the letter writers had different facts, opinions or epistemologies, but felt different emotions. The modern Left is much more about emotions than the logic, objective reasoning and empirical facts that apparently underlie White Supremacy.
We are experiencing the Chinese Cultural Revolution in our time.
This US political situation is deteriorating by the day.
Progressing. Deteriorating from some perspective.
There’s more of a window to make asks for things. -- WSJ "journalist"
Fire him for that sentence alone.
The invitations to the right cocktail parties aren’t going to write themselves, so those “news reporters” needed to let people know they don’t want to be associated with the wrong-thinking opinion writers.
As previously mentioned their examples of 'factual disputes' are the typical petty word play and desired leftie spin on the facts. Makes me believe their real target is Kim Strassel for her dogged pursuit and exposure of the truth of the leftie hoaxes the last few years...
My WSJ subscription is very expensive, but I keep it because I feel a need to stay informed.
Go ahead, WSJ, give me a reason to cancel it.
Sod off swampy.
Others above have mentioned the factual problems in the letter. What'd I'd love to hear is the letter writers' assessment of the gross lies published by the NYT on the Russia probe. That would go a long way towards informing me how much credence to put in their complaints.
The Journal used to publish weekly a nearly full page article about some aspect of China, from human i Teresa to human rights to business. And the editorial page was regularly critical of the CCP. Then Rupert Murdoch both the paper and silenced all that due to his business interests in China.
Are they still muzzled?
The Journal used to weekly publish a nearly full page article about China, human interest, human rights, commerce, culture. And the editorial page regularly criticized the CCP.
Rupert Murdoch stopped all that when he bought the paper due to his business interests in China.
Are they still muzzled?
Cancel Culture - interesting word.
I have wondered about how Americans view The Fountainhead (1943) -
I am now using it for understanding how the Cancel Culture gets started against whatever life affirming heroism Ayn Rand saw to ascribe to Americans.
- Even Roark's girlfriend wants him cancelled and tries to get him to cancel himself.
- Toohey is the mastermind in launching cancel attacks -
- Toohey also relishes being called HUMANITARIAN which is proof to him that he has his victims thoroughly bamboozled.
- Wynand the Publisher wants a house designed by Roark - but then becomes target for cancel too - Toohey has his chosen people in crucial positions on the paper.
- Roark "cancels" building he designed while
- Toohey wants to take over Banner that Wynand has built.
- Wynand cancels Banner rather than let it be taken over by Toohey.
- Roark gets hired to build Wynand Tower
Further news of USA fate after 11/3/2020
That's funny I just sent them a long list of factual errors and extremely biased choices they made in reporting on recent rioting and crime in Atlanta. It was as bad as any woke NYT screed. I expected at minimum a correction to simple points of fact and some justification for the fibbing. The writer and her editor must have been too busy denouncing the edotiral staff.
I don't read the WSJ often. Had I seen this sort of lazy garbage in the NYT, WaPo, Chi Trib or AJC, I wouldn't have even bothered requesting a correction. But I'd assumend this sort of thing didn't go on at the WSJ.
Journalism is over.
So...it occurred to me that the woke progressives in any newsroom need a name...
So here are some names: Harper. Madison. Sophia. Brooklyn.
Each of these names sounds lily-white, like most "progressives." Entitled and out-of-touch.
I stopped reading the news section quite awhile ago when I encountered a story that claimed that consumers were hurt by supermarket competition. While I would tolerate this as an opinion if properly argued, I wouldn't tolerate it as a factual statement. I still subscribe for the opinion section and occasionally read financial or real estate articles, but the "news" reporting is a waste.
Here’s how I see this long-running battle. Picture a boxing ring.
In one corner, we have the entire news media including all opinion pages excluding the WSJ, every TV news channel except Tucker, Hannity, and a few other folks, and all syndicated news especially AP. Picture this boxer being 90 feet tall and weighing 14,000 pounds.
In the other corner, we have the WSJ opinion page and a semi-retired 90 year old Thomas Sowell plus a couple other people. Picture this boxer being 5’ 7” and 146 pounds.
This is the reality of today’s media, and this has been true for probably 30 years, at least.
Now picture a graph of the amount of influence on people’s thoughts and feelings for the “MSM” corner vs the conservative opinion corner. It isn’t close. Staying with the boxing analogy, the MSM corner wins every fight by KO.
Against this backdrop, the trainer for the MSM is bitching at the referee that the conservative opinion boxer is wearing illegal boxing gloves.
We as a nation have literally hundreds of bigger problems to solve — this is so obvious it feels stupid to even type it out — than a few incorrect opinions getting let loose in the wild on the WSJ opinion pages.
The news media is indeed the Enemy of the People (sure let’s capitalize that too!). So are their allies and supporters.
It is what is. When you’re in a war, it’s best to understand you are, in fact, in a war.
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